The Guanches of Tenerife, the holy image of our Lady of Candelana, and the Spanish conquest and settlement

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The Guanches of Tenerife

Alonso de Espinosa, Sir Clements Robert Markham

t ( i&€^aelml2/u)e/ilc' ties' Guanchen/.

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WORKS ISSUED BY

Gbe Daklu^t Society.

THE ORIGIN AND MIRACLES

OF

THE HOLY IMAGE OF OUR LADY
OF CANDELARIA,

WITH

A DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLAND OF TENERIFE.

SECOND SERIES.
No. XXI.

ISSUED FOX I907.

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PORTRAIT OF OUR LADY OF CANDELARIA,

BY JUAN PEREZ, 1703.

In Mr. Grenville's copy of Juan Nunes de la Pena , “ Conquista" Sc., 1676.
Reproduced and Printed for the Hakluyt Society by Donald Macbeth.

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THE

GUANCHES OF TENERIFE

THE HOLY IMAGE OF OUR LADY
OF CANDELARIA

AND THE

SPANISH CONQUEST AND SETTLEMENT,

BY

THE FRIAR ALONSO DE ESPINOSA

OF THE ORDER OF PREACHERS.

Cranglatefc anil toitf) Jlote* anH an Sntrotmrtion,

BY

SIR CLEMENTS MARKHAM, K.C.B.,

PRESIDENT OF THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY,

LONDON :

PRINTED FOR THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY.

M.nccccvn.

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LONDON :

PRINTED AT THE BEDFORD PRESS, 20 AND 2T, BEDFORDBURY, W.C.

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I

I

-0

I

G

TO

ETHEL TREW,

WHOSE INTEREST IN THE PEOPLE OF GUIMAR,
THE LAND OF OUR LADY OF CANDELARIA,

IS NOT CONFINED TO WORDS ALONE,

THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED
BY HER FRIEND,

THE EDITOR.

167164

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COUNCIL

OK

THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY.

Sir Clements Markham, K.C.B., F.R.S., President.

The Right Hon. The Earl of Liverpool, Vice-President.

The Right Hon. The Lord Amherst of Hackney, Vice-President.
The Right Hon. Lord Belhaven and Stenton.

Thomas B. Bowring.

Colonel George Earl Church.

Sir William Martin Conway.

The Rev. Canon John Neale Dalton, C.M.G., C.V.O., F.S.A.
George William Forrest, C.I.E.

William Foster, B.A.

The Right Hon. Sir George Taubman Goldie, K.C.M.G.,

Pres. R.G.S.

Albert Gray, K..C.

Edward Heawood, M.A.

Colonel Sir Thomas Hungerford Holdich, K.C.M.G., K.C.S.I.
John Scott Keltie, LL.D.

Admiral Sir Albert Hastings Markham, K.C.B.

Admiral Sir Frederick William Richards, G.C.B.

Sir Richard Carnac Temple, Bart., C.I.E.

Roland Venables Vernon, B.A.

Basil H. SOULSBY, B.A., F.S.A. , Honorary Secretary.

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CONTENTS.

PAGE

Introduction . . i

Remnants of the Guanche Language . xx

The Nine Guanche Sentences . . . . xxv

The Origin and Miracles of the Holy Image of Our Lady of

Candelaria . . . . . i

Table of the Chapters . . . . .3

Table of the Miracles in Look IV . . .5

Preface of Alonso de Espinosa . . . .9

Report on the Present Condition of the Image of Our Lady of

Candelaria. By Miss Ethel Trew . . .137

Bibliography, in Four Parts :

Part I. —General History, etc., A. D. 1341-1907. Chronologically

arranged, with the British Museum Press-marks . . 139

Part II. — Index of Authors, Editors, etc., a.d. 1341-1907 . 173

Part III. — Index of Titles .... 185

Part IV. — List of other Works, quoted by the Editor. Alphabeti-
cally arranged, with the British Museum Press-marks . 197

Index ....... 203

(1

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

r. Map of Tenerife. By the Editor . . . i

2. Map of the Territory of Our Lady of Candelaria. By the

Editor ...... xxvi

3. Facsimile of the Title-page of Del Origeti y Milagros de la

Santa Imagen de nuestra Seiiora de Candelaria , by Alonso
de Espinosa, Sevilla , 1 594, from the Copy in the British
Museum. By Donald Macbeth . . to face 1

4. Facsimile of the Colophon of the same edition. By Donald

Macbeth ..... to face 136

5. Reduced facsimile of the Engraved Portrait of Nuestra

Senora de Candelaria, by Juan Perez, 1703, inserted in Mr.
Thomas Grenville’s copy of Conquisia y Antiguedades de
las Islas de la Gran Canaria , by Juan Nunez de la Pena,
Madrid , 1676 (British Museum). By Donald Macbeth.

to face Title

6. Reduced facsimile of a View of the Catacombs of the Guan-

ches. From the British Museum copy of Allgemeine His-
torie der Reisen zu IVasser und Lande , vol ii, p. 40, Plate 4,
Leipzig , 1748. 49. By Donald Macbeth . to face 40

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INTRODUCTION.

H E story of the discovery and
settlement of the Canary Islands
has long been considered by the
Council as a proper and desirable
subject for a volume or more in
the Hakluyt Society’s series. The enterprise of
Jean de Bethencourt and his gallant companions
is the opening chapter of the story, and I pro-
posed its translation to our former President
upwards of thirty-six years ago. Sir David
Dundas cordially approved the suggestion, and lent
me his fine copy of Bergeron’s edition. My dear
friend, schoolfellow, and messmate, the late Commo-
dore James G. Goodenough, undertook to translate
and edit, and we began to make researches together :
work in which he took a deep interest, and for
which his linguistic and other accomplishments
specially fitted him. But in 1871 he was called away
on important duties connected with relief work in
France, and in 1873 he went out to take command
of the Australian Station, closing a most valuable
and meritorious career by an heroic death two

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11

INTRODUCTION.

years afterwards. I secured an equally competent
editor for Bethencourt in Mr. Major, of the British
Museum, and the volume was issued to members in
1872.

The authors, Pierre Bontier and Jean le Verrier,
who were Bethencourt’s chaplains, knew how to tell
their story. Mr. Major truly says that “ there is
much of picturesque beauty about the quaint old
narrative of the adventures of the Sire de Bethen-
court. We find ourselves in an atmosphere of
romance, albeit the story is most essentially true.
It lends the charm of chivalry to an expedition of
discovery, undertaken at a period when chivalry
was itself a reality.”

Mr. Major, in his learned and interesting intro-
duction, supplied us with an able rdsumd of all that
was previously known of the Canary Islands. The
allusion of Strabo is followed by the curious notices
given by Plutarch in his Life of Sertorius, and by
Pliny in his remarks on the career of King Juba.
Mr. Major goes on to inform us of what can be
gleaned from the Medicean portolano of 1351: of the
acceptance of a Canarian kingly crown by Don Luis
de la Cerda, the rightful King of Spain ; and he
gives all the information to be obtained from the
works of Qa da Mosto and Azurara. Bethencourt
himself, and his lieutenant, Gadifer de la Salle, took
possession of Lanzarote and Fuerte ventura, the two
most eastern islands. They made descents upon
Canaria, but were driven back to their ships by the
inhabitants. They visited the eastern islands of

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INTRODUCTION.

Ill

Palma, Gomera, and Hierro, but made no attempt
on Tenerife.

It remains, then, to present the members of the
Hakluyt Society with an account of the island of
Tenerife, the central island, and the most interesting
and important of the group ; of its original inhabi-
tants ; and of its conquest and settlement.

Bethencourt and his gallant adventurers, though
they never landed on the island, must often have
gazed with admiration at the glorious peak of
Tenerife shooting up high above the clouds, and at
the serrated ridges of Anaga. But the conquest
was left for another people, and delayed for well-
nigh another century. The brave Guanches had a
respite.

Tenerife is an island of quite exceptional beauty
and interest, gifted by Nature with every attraction
that can please the eye, and by every advantage of
climate, soil, and position. From its backbone of
volcanic mountains the beautiful peak rises into
the region of perpetual snow ; while from the grassy
and forest-covered uplands lovely valleys and
ravines slope down to the sea level. The gap, in
which lies the city of Laguna, separates the moun-
tain mass, culminating in the peak, from the wild
and jagged mountains of Anaga to the north, and
forms a natural highway from the eastern to the
western side.

The various elevations ensure a great variety in
the vegetation of the different zones, which has been
well described by Humboldt in his personal narra-

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